


Moving Forward

by salamoonder (orphan_account)



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: D&D Shenanigans, Gen, Paradox, Past Lives, written for a prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-22
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2020-03-09 21:13:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18925144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/salamoonder
Summary: This was written about a year ago for the following prompt:"NEW IDEA: TWELFTH DOCTOR IS AT A LOSE WITH NO CLARA, HE'S LOST HIS MEMORIES OF HER AND HE ISN'T IN A GOOD PLACE. THE TARDIS ISN'T DOING SO WELL HERSELF WITH TRYING TO HELP THE DOCTOR. THEN THERE IS AN ATTACK ON EARTH THAT THE TARDIS TAKES HIM TO, ONLY FOR HIM TO RUN INTO HIS ELEVENTH SELF AND AMY AND RORY. THIS NEW ENEMY APPEARS TO BE SOMETHING THAT EVEN THE DOCTOR ISN'T SURE HOW TO BEAT. NOT EVEN TWO OF THEM ARE SURE, MAYBE IT'LL TAKE THREE, ALTHOUGH ONE IS CURRENTLY AVOIDING THE TIME WAR."





	Moving Forward

He’s not sure how long he’s been pacing the TARDIS. Five minutes? Two hours? A month? Does it even matter? It’s a time machine, for goodness sake.

He’s not even sure where they are. Or when they are. All he can focus on is trying to grasp that last thread of memory, slipping away from him like gossamer through water, into the depths of his mind. He has a sudden flashback of the way Donna looked at him in those last moments and has to blink back tears.

The TARDIS lurches, seemingly in time with the discordance of his emotions. It’s still for a moment, then begins to shake. The Doctor pauses in his never ending loop and clings to the control panel instead. “Where are we going, girl?” he whispers, but the TARDIS offers no response beyond another flipped lever and a second, more violent jolt.

It’s a few more rough moments before everything stills. The Doctor stands for a second leaning heavily against the console. He really, really would rather not face the world right now. He’d rather make hot chocolate and then go back to bed.

That is, until the doors to the TARDIS burst open and he spins around, blinking in surprise.

“Doctor?”

“ _Doctor?_ ”

“What is he-what is he doing in our-in your TARDIS?”

“Amy-”

“Oh, I always do this, I always forget-”

“No, not you-”

“Why is he here?! Why are you here!”

“Amy, calm down-”

“ENOUGH!” bellows the Doctor.

There’s a brief silence, during which you could hear a pin drop. Except for one thing: the noise outside.

“What…is that?” the Doctor asks his eleventh incarnation.

Amy Pond, brilliant, over-tall, too-bright Amy, steps further into the TARDIS. “Wait, are you serious right now? How do you not know what’s happening?”

“Amy, shh.” Eleven puts a hand on her shoulder to hold her back. “Doctor, there’s-”

“Wait, did you just call him Doctor?” asks Rory quietly. Wonderful, reluctant, honest Rory. Damn it all, this is not what he needs right now. Eleven lets out a long sigh.

“Yes. He’s me; we’ve met before.”

There’s a brief silence. Twelve rolls his eyes. Eleven whispers “dammit”, glancing between the Doctor and the Ponds. “Wait, are you serious did I never actually-?”

“Explain it to them? No, you never did. Hell, this is weird from the other side.”

Eleven bites his lip.

“Riiiight, okay, you two; there may be a few things about my physiology that I…neglected to mention…”

There’s a much longer silence. The sounds of chaos from outside are becoming more apparent.

“Doctor…” says Twelve, “What…what is happening…”

“Well, Doctor, it appears that some twat with a DnD handbook-”

“Sorry, a what?”

“It also appears that the paradox is fuzzying your memory,” Eleven grumbles. Twelve growls but says nothing.

“Um, Doctor,” says Amy. “Shouldn’t we…um…go? If this isn’t the right TARDIS?”

“Yes!” says Twelve.

“No-” says Eleven at the same time. “Oh, for goodness sake, you have to come with us, surely you remember that much.”

Twelve lets his shoulders drop, defeated. He does remember this…at least, vaguely…

It turns out there’s not too much for him to recall anyway. Grumbling the whole way, he follows himself and the Ponds out of the TARDIS. All he does is trail behind, through the whole adventure.

He can’t bring himself to be the clever one, even in the face of his ridiculously energetic younger self. He can’t do the Doctor thing, can’t swoop in and save everyone with one hand tied behind his back. Not now.

“So- when you die, yeah? You don’t really die?” he overhears Amy asking Eleven as they run. The streets are mostly empty save for the occasional screaming passerby or gelatinous cube monster. “Doesn’t that make you immortal?”

“Yes. Well, no. Amy, I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Five seconds later: “But how does that work? Is it some sort of shapeshifter thing or-?”

“Complete regeneration of the cells?” Rory asks quietly. He hasn’t said anything through all of this, has kept his gaze shifting warily back and forth between the young and the old Doctors.

“Yes,” says Twelve finally, and Rory snaps his full attention to him. Twelve studies his face as closely as he dares. There’s no fear there, but a quiet intensity that almost makes him look away.

Rory always did seem to know how to read him.

The conversation seems to end there as suddenly as though a brick wall had slammed down on their words. All in all the rest of the adventure doesn’t take long; honestly, the Doctor isn’t entirely sure what he’s doing there besides festering in the pain of losing the Ponds all over again.  
But he does have some vestige of memory from doing this the first time around, and so when they’ve forced the last dragon back inside the cursed player’s manual belonging to a thoroughly terrified DM, he suggests they all go out for chips.

Amy and Rory, who have hardly heard him speak this whole time except to make snarky comments, both look thoroughly surprised, but Eleven nods once, the smile disappearing from his face.

They walk back to Twelve’s TARDIS so he can take them to the fish and chips shop nearest to their TARDIS. Rory still seems…suspicious? Uneasy? But Eleven nudges them up ahead and, as this seems to be fairly early on in the honeymoon period, it doesn’t take them long to get wrapped up in each other, quite literally.

Eleven falls back to keep pace alongside Twelve. “So.”

“So.”

“You know, Doctor, I think I liked it better when I was the oldest one in the room.”

Twelve chuckles. “Why? More room to boss people around?”

“No.” Eleven frowns. “Well, yes, but that isn’t the point.”

“What is the point, Doctor?”

“The point is that-” Eleven stops. Shudders. “The point is that I found you alone, and I can see the pain in your eyes. I know my own eyes.”

“Mm. Do you?” says Twelve, almost miserably, because he’s not in the mood and he doesn’t know what to do with this bubbly, bright eyed before Doctor, and his head is beginning to ache with the remembering. He remembers meeting the version of himself who lost Rose Tyler, the version of himself who lost Gallifrey. But this is the furthest point and beyond it nothing is clear; as far as he knows, no Doctor beyond himself, not one facet of himself has yet experienced this much death. And pain. And-

Oh, if only he could remember everything.

But perhaps he doesn’t want to.

His younger self is watching him closely now, eyes too bright for a different reason now.

“What have we become, Doctor?” he whispers. “What- no, no no no don’t tell me, don’t, I don’t want to know.”

They walk in silence for a few more minutes, and Twelve thinks about Missy and Martha and Donna, Jack and Rose and River and _her_ and. And the Ponds.

Beautiful, happy, lovely Ponds, Rory with his arm curled around Amy’s shoulder and her hand in his back pocket, bright hair trailing down his back as she nudges his shoulder with her head.

“You don’t care anymore, do you.”

Twelve sighs heavily. “You know that’s not true.”

“Then act like it. Act like you care.”

“I…can’t.”

“Why?” asks Eleven, and a single tear wells up and trails down his face. The Doctor hates watching himself cry. “Why? Don’t give me that look, you know, you know I know you, and you’re scaring me. Do you have any idea how terrifying it is to see yourself like this?”

The Doctor waits for a moment, and Eleven laughs bitterly. “Well I suppose you do.”

They’ve almost reached the TARDIS. Twelve reaches a hand into the dark of his memory, tries for anything, something. Remember. Remember.  
The corner of a smile, a hand on his face.

His younger self has begun to walk into the TARDIS after Amy and Rory, but the elder shoots a hand out and catches him by the shoulder.

“Wait,” he says, and sighs. “I’m…I’m sorry.”

Eleven looks down, not facing him, arms crossed. “Sorry?”

“Yes. I’ll…I’m going to start looking again, Doctor, I swear it to you.”

He looks up then, almost smiling. He knows what that means.

“You promise?”

“Promise.”


End file.
